Several different calendar systems exist in the world today. While the majority of the Western world uses the Gregorian calendar system, other calendar systems are used in the Middle East and the Far East. For example, the Chinese calendar is used in many East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. The Jewish calendar is the official calendar of Israel. The Islamic calendar is the official calendar of Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic countries. The Indian calendar is the official calendar of India. Several other types of calendars are used by various religious, financial, and industrial organizations to suit specific purposes. Each calendar system is unique in the naming and organization of days, weeks, months, and years. A summary of the organization of some of the calendar systems is illustrated in table 1 below:
TABLE 1CalendarNumber of daysNumber of monthsNumber ofSystemper yearper yeardays per monthBahai365-366* 19**19Chinese353-355, 383*-385*12-13*29-30Gregorian365-366*1228-31Indian365-366*1230-31Islamic354-355*1229-30Jewish353-355, 383*-385*12-13*29-30*Denotes leap year;**The Bahai calendar system year has four intercalendary days between the eighteenth and nineteenth months (five intercalendary days in a leap year)
Modern conveniences such as air travel have enabled people to move to different regions of the world. In many instances, the country that a person has moved to does not use the same calendar system as the person's home country. In such cases, it is necessary to translate the local calendar system to the person's home country calendar system. Calendar system translations are also needed by organizations that do business through the world. Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method for translating from one calendar system to another.
The prior art has previously addressed the problem of translating one calendar system into another. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,716 (the '716 patent) entitled “Date Conversions with 360-Day-Year-Calendar” discloses a method for translating between a Gregorian calendar and a calendar system containing three hundred sixty days per year. The '716 patent does not disclose a method for translating between any other calendar systems. Therefore, a need still exists for a method for translating between a plurality of calendar systems other than a Gregorian calendar system and a 360-day-year calendar system.
Because of the various subtleties in many of the calendar systems, it is preferable to create a translation system in which the number of calculations required to translate one calendar system into another calendar system is minimized. The minimization of the number of translation calculations can be accomplished by using a generic calendar system and translating between the generic calendar system and the plurality of other calendar systems. The prior art has previously addressed the issue of creating a generic calendaring system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,656 (the '656 patent) entitled “Perpetual Coded Calendar” discloses a calendar system in which the entire year is depicted on a seven by thirty-one matrix. The matrix contains colored dots that indicate the day of the week and the month of the year. The '656 patent only applies to a Gregorian calendar. The '656 patent does not disclose a method for translating the colored dot matrix into any other calendar systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,814 (the '814 patent) entitled “System and Method for Processing a New Calendar System” discloses a method for creating a Consist calendar system. The Consist calendar system is identical to the Gregorian calendar system with the exception that the Consist year is a three digit number equal to the Gregorian year minus 1,800. However, the '814 patent fails to address the issue of translating from the Consist calendar system to any non-Gregorian calendar systems (i.e. calendar systems that do not contain a 365-day-year). The '814 patent also fails to disclose a method for translating dates in one non-Gregorian calendar system to dates in another non-Gregorian calendar system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,826 (the '826 patent) entitled “Calendaring System” discloses a calendar system which counts the number of days since Jan. 1, 0001. The '826 patent discloses an algorithm which predicts the occurrence of leap years and thus can predict the day of the week upon which a specific date occurs. The '826 patent also discloses a method for translating a date in an absolute calendar system into a Gregorian format. However, the '826 patent fails to address the issue of translating from the absolute calendar system to any non-Gregorian calendar systems (i.e. calendar systems that do not contain a 365 day year). The '826 patent also fails to disclose a method for translating dates in one non-Gregorian calendar system to dates in another non-Gregorian calendar system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,640 (the '640 patent) entitled “System for Calculating Occasion Dates and Translating Between Different Calendar Systems, and Intelligent Agent for Using Same” discloses a translation system between Gregorian and non-Gregorian calendars. The '640 patent discloses a formula for translating a specific date in one calendar system to another. The '640 patent stores all events in the Gregorian calendar system and translates the dates to the required calendar system. Although the '640 patent discloses a useful method for translating a date in one calendar system to a date in another calendar system, the '640 patent fails to disclose a method for displaying a calendar system with a plurality of user-defined events. In other words, a user cannot use the '640 patent's disclosure to discern the number of days per year, number and names of the months of the year, number of days per month, and number and name of the days of the week in the foreign calendar system. The user also cannot view his event entries in the new calendar system. Therefore, a need still exists for a method of storing events which are entered in a plurality of different date formats and in which the events can be included in a displayed calendar systems.
Businesses also have needs for customizable calendar systems. Customized calendar systems are used by the petrochemical processing industry, the financial industry, and various other industries. Businesses that create customized calendar systems typically do so because they desire more uniformity in the weeks, months, or years than is offered with the Gregorian calendar system. However, the prior art has not disclosed a method for creating a customizable calendar system in which the calendar system can be automatically translated into another calendar system. Therefore, a need exists for a method for creating a custom calendar system and translating the custom calendar system into a plurality of other calendar systems.
Another important aspect of calendar systems is the ability to easily integrate with organizational software. Organizational software is well known in the art as evidenced by computer programs such as OUTLOOK®, LOTUS NOTES™, and PALM® OS. Because at least one of these programs operates on a majority of the world's computers, a calendar system translation tool which is integratable with these software programs would be especially beneficial. One of the objectives of these programs is to limit the number of calculations made by the processors executing the software program. The need to limit the number of calculations is especially high in computers with limited battery power such as laptops and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Therefore, a need exists in the art to reduce the total number of required calculations to translate one calendar system into another.
While the prior art solutions address many of the translation problems between calendar systems, no prior art solution addresses all of the needs identified above. Consequently, a need exists in the art for a method for storing a plurality of events in a generic calendar system, displaying a non-Gregorian calendar system, and displaying the stored events on the displayed calendar system. A need also exists for a method for creating customizable calendar systems in which the user can designate the number of days per year, the number of months per year, the number of days per month, the number of days per week, and the names of the years, months, and days. Finally, a need exists for a method of reducing the required number of translation algorithms and the overall number of calculations required to translate one calendar system into another.